I shrugged. “Vic didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Not that it matters.”
“That’s right. Not anyone’s business if they chose to spend the night together,” Nolan agreed. “Is Vic gonna meet us there, too?”
“I don’t think so. He’s out answering calls all over town because of the storm.”
Turning back to Poppy, I noticed that she’d been uncharacteristically quiet during our talk about Muriel. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who’d been holding back some thoughts.
“Has Muriel tried to call you this morning?” I asked her.
“Me?” She shook her head. “No, not yet. I thought she might, but she probably thinks I’m sleeping in late. And then I had no reception at the ranch, so there’s that too.”
Nolan groaned. “Sleeping in late is exactly what the three of us should be doing, but I guess the next best thing is spending time with you like this.”
“I’ll second that.” I gave a genuine grin for the first time that morning as I reached over to put my hand on her thigh. “If we can’t be naked in bed together, I’m glad you’re right here next to me.”
“I call dibs on sitting next to her on the way back,” Nolan called out. “You don’t get to have all the fun up there.”
She turned and winked at him. “Maybe next time we’ll pull over so the three of us can have fun at the same time.”
“Damn,” I reached down to adjust myself. “Don’t get me started.”
“Me, too,” Nolan said.
Poppy just laughed. “Mission accomplished. Y’all make it too easy for me sometimes.”
I snorted. “How can you be so mean and so sweet at the same time?”
“And don’t forget beautiful,” Nolan added. “Mean and sweet and beautiful at the same time. It’s a dangerous combination.”
I definitely wasn’t going to argue with him on that point. Jesus, I’d been a fucking wreck since the moment I’d laid eyes on her the evening before.
“Oh, wow...” I had to wince as we pulled into the long, private road that wove its way through the resort property.
There were trees down everywhere, with at least one balancing precariously across a power line. Shingles had been blown off roofs, and garbage and God-only-knows what else lay strewn across what had been a pristine, manicured lawn just a day before.
“My goodness,” Poppy whispered as she looked around with wide eyes. “It looks like a hurricane came through here.”
“Might as well have been one,” Nolan grumbled. “Those straight-line winds can do just as much damage. And then with all that rain?” He shook his head. “I’m surprised it doesn’t look worse this morning, to be honest.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “When Vic told me a tree had crashed into the bungalow, I expected the place to look like a war zone. It really might’ve been a lot worse if some of those older trees around the main building had fallen over.”
We drove a little more, taking it slowly around the fallen branches and through the deep puddles of standing water every few yards.
“Our bungalows are right back there.” Poppy pointed to the little cottages in the distance, then made a strangled sort of gasping noise once they had fully come into view. “Oh my God.” She looked over at me, and all the color drained from her face. “And we’ve found your war zone.”
She was right.
Some of the bungalows had made it through the storm completely intact, but others, well, not so much.
“I’m guessing that is the one.” I point to the bungalow up ahead. “You can barely even see the damn thing past that huge tree trunk.”
With branches and leaves everywhere, it seemed to create its own new forest right where a bungalow should be.
“I can’t even...” She covered her mouth as she shook her head again. “What if they had been under there? Or even close by? I can’t even stand to think about it.”
“Try not to think about it.” Nolan reached up from the back seat to rub her shoulders. “The important part is that she’s okay. They’re all okay. Everything else can be cleaned up and put back together again.”
Poppy didn’t waste any time once we’d parked in front of the damaged little building. I barely had enough time to shift into park before she had jumped out and begun running toward the place.
“Muriel?” Poppy called out as she gingerly stepped around the debris. “Muriel, can you hear me? Are you in there? Are you okay?”
“Stand back. We’ll clear this in less than a minute,” I called to her.
The thickest part of the tree completely blocked the door, and there was enough kindling strewn around for a whole year of campfires. There was no way to see whether there was damage to the property, except logic told us there must be some. Fortunately, the tree hadn’t broken through into the little house, which would have made pulling it clear a precarious operation because it may have brought the roof down.